Various types of tape printing apparatuses have been conventionally proposed for producing a tape with characters printed thereon. Generally, a tape cassette to be used in a tape printing apparatus has a cassette case comprising a ribbon spool onto which an ink ribbon is wound, a film tape spool onto which a film tape serving as a printing medium is wound, and an adhesive tape spool onto which an adhesive tape is wound. In the above-described tape cassette, characters and the like are printed on the film tape by a thermal head provided in the tape printing apparatus, through the ink ribbon, while the ink ribbon and the film tape are being conveyed, to thereby produce a tape with characters printed thereon.
In general, to improve the scratch resistance of the characters and the like formed on the film after the printing operation in the tape printing apparatus, an adhesive tape is pasted on the character printed surface of the post-printing film tape by a pasting roller or the like, after which the tape is cut.
However, since the adhesive tape needs to be pasted on the character printed surface of the film tape after the characters and the like have been printed thereon, the adhesive tape spool onto which the adhesive tape is wound and the pasting roller must be accommodated in the tape cassette used in the conventional tape printing apparatus.
As a result, the size of the tape cassette becomes larger, thereby creating a problem that the overall size of the printing apparatus must inevitably be made larger to allow for installation of a cassette mounting unit. Further, since the pasting roller provided inside the tape cassette is configured so as to be arranged between the thermal head and the cutting mechanism provided in the tape printing apparatus, the thermal head is inevitably arranged far away from the cutting mechanism. As a result, a front blank space (blank space portion corresponding to the distance between a cutting position of the printing tape and the thermal head of the tape printing apparatus) of the produced printing tape becomes large, thereby creating a problem that the amount of consumed printing tape increases which leads to a sudden increase in the running cost.
One or more disclosure is applied in the process of pasting the adhesive tape to a character-printed surface of the film tape for producing a so-called laminated-type printing tape with an improved scratch resistance of the characters and the like.
To solve the above-described problems, there have been required a compact tape cassette from which the adhesive tape spool onto which the adhesive tape is wound and the pasting roller for pasting the adhesive tape onto the character-printed surface of the film tape are removed. Also, there have been required a tape printing apparatus which employs the above compact tape cassette and is capable of reducing the running cost of the printing tape with structure that the tape cassette, the thermal head, and the cutting mechanism are arranged close to one another for shortening the front blank space of the printing tape.
In a configuration in which a conveying roller of the printing tape is arranged to directly face opposite the adhesive surface of the printing tape, if the adhesive force of the adhesive surface of the printing tape is strong, the adhesive is likely to be transferred (adhere) to the conveying roller, even if the conveying roller has been subjected to a release agent treatment.
Also, a printed tape which is discharged from a tape printing apparatus with its adhesive agent being unprotected cannot easily be stored for a long time without being adhered to a target body.